In the Name of Fashion

Last Sunday I went to an estate sale where I scored three 1903, 1905 and 1908 Woman's Home Companion magazines in remarkable condition. They are filled with beautiful illustrations and the old ads are fascinating to me so I thought I'd share a few before I put the magazines over in my Etsy shop. We've come a long way, baby!
Cause and effect. Cause and effect?? I suppose they were promoting the corset as the cause and the effect was the figure but a whole different cause and effect comes to my mind. I'm pretty sure wearing this would make me feel crabby. And faint. And crabby. Rust proof? Really? I never knew my grandmother had to worry about her corset rusting. Man, it must have been a hard life. And they came in PAIRS? Huh? What? Like there was a separate one for each side? Each girl got her own?
When these women's granddaughters started burning their bras I'm thinking Grandma was buying them the gasoline!